Student room shortage stays above 20,000 despite new builds

More students in the Netherlands are staying in their parents’ home or giving up the search for a place of their own, as the shortage of student housing remains high despite thousands of new rooms being built each year.

The country is short of more than 20,200 student rooms, barely down from 21,000 a year earlier, according to the annual student housing monitor from knowledge centre Kences, published this week.

Social housing providers have built nearly 5,000 units a year since 2022, meeting the targets they were set.

Kences had expected the shortage to climb, because private landlords have been selling up in response to new rent rules and higher taxes. Some 32,300 fewer students have rented from private landlords since 2024.

That did not translate into a sharp rise, largely because student numbers have also dropped, including among international students. The share of students living away from home has fallen from 50% to 43% over eight years.

Fewer rooms, riskier ads
The rooms still on the private market are increasingly hard to rent safely. Many are advertised above the legal limit.

Scammers, meanwhile, have flooded TikTok with fake listings that pocket deposits for rooms that do not exist.

Internationals are especially exposed to housing fraud, as they rarely have a family home to fall back on and often do not know their rights.

Kences wants the profit tax paid by housing associations scrapped, which it says would fund 15,000 to 25,000 more student homes over ten years. “Every euro we hand to the tax office, we would rather put into housing,” director Reijnder Jan Spits told broadcaster NOS.

Even if every current building plan goes ahead, the centre warned, the shortage could still stand at between 10,000 and 35,000 rooms in eight years.